Tuesday, 11 September 2012
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Teacher's Strike in Chicago
I want to stand with the teachers who are on strike in Chicago.
Sure there are 400,000 students out of school. But most people don't realize that the average teacher in Chicago only makes $71,200 a year. They also only get three months off during the Summer. Here is the link: Link
In recent days, it has been suggested that teachers be held to some sort of standard for what students learn.
Do you think it is appropriate for the teachers to strike?
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Comments (78)
Yes.
Nice.
I don't know everything about the situation, so it's hard to say. I heard that the state wanted to impose stricter test score/teacher employment rules...not sure, though. If that is the case, I'm not sure how that's fair. You can't blame the teachers for the kids' life obstacles that are making it hard for them to stay in school, let alone thrive in school.
And yet..the strike is so bad for all those kids.
This particular strike is going to up the ante for all other teacher's unions in cities where there are multi-million dollar budget deficits and education takes the hit to try and balance things out. How will Rahm Emmanuel deal with it? Will he concede ground? Will the union concede ground? I'm following this pretty closely.
@Jenny_Wren - I recommend for you a little film called waiting for superman. the picture it paints of the educational system, and the effect that the teachers union has on it is horrifying.
Yes because then no school! Woo hoo!
@iones_island - The film Waiting for Superman is thinly-veiled anti-union propaganda, at the kindest definition.
@iones_island - I've heard good things about that documentary, I'll take a look. I have a feeling any negative information about unions will be labeled "propaganda".
If all they were striking against was the proposals to attach teacher salary and employment almost exclusively to the standardized test scores then i would probably side with the teachers. (The emphasis on standardized test scores are further destroying what was already an abysmal school system in this country.)
However, since the teachers (from what i've read) are also looking for more money and better retirement and benefits when the district is offering a better deal than they already had and the district was already having financial trouble before the strike (giving credence to the district's claims to have offered the best deal they can) I have to conclude that the teachers are just idiots trying to eliminate their own jobs.
No I don't support it. I do think, however, teachers should go on strike from having to be in a union.
It's funny this happen today, as Ontario passed a bill to block teachers from striking (and imposing a wage freeze) for 2 years.
Teachers are outraged, because they say it takes away their collective bargaining rights. So, they're going to do a work to rule campaign (only, they're not calling it "work to rule"... they're just encouraging teachers to worry about teaching and not worry about silly things like extra-curriculars).
Everyone claims they act the way they do to fight for the students, yet no one actually does.
Per CNN: The union said they were close Sunday night to a deal on pay, but far apart on teacher evaluations, benefits and other issues.
If you have never been in contract negotiations between a teacher's union and a school board, you wouldn't know that tiny changes in words and sentences can take HOURS to hammer out. Now imagine how long it would take to decide on benefits, class size, and evaluation issues. As a special education teacher in Illinois, I am very interested in how this is resolved. I can't imagine being evaluated based on my low-SES, far below grade level students' results on the ISAT, or whatever will take its place with the Common Core standards. Standardized tests, at least for special education students, are wildly inappropriate measures of achievement and success. Guess what? One of my middle schoolers improved from knowing 3 letters and 4 numbers to 7 letters and 9 numbers in one school year....but his standardized test scores showed that he didn't improve at all. He more than doubled his previous achievement, but doesn't function like his same-age peers. Should I be laid off because of that? I haven't seen any answers in any of the teacher evaluation system proposals that actually take special education into account.Somehow, private schools and homeschoolers are able to do a better job with thousands less per child. Also, in the real world, if you make a crappy product or have a crappy service, you have to go out of business when someone else comes along and does a better job. Why should the government schools have a monopoly? They get paid either way and the teachers unions make it impossible to fire a bad teacher. However, everywhere that the voucher system has been tried, it has proven to be a success for the students.
Isn't it also amazing that the same liberals who think teachers can never be paid enough say doctors ought to work for free?
some of the statistics you're citing are weighted. there are teachers who make much more because they have multiple master's degrees. look at it this way. i worked at Lehman Brothers. because the CEO and top execs received millions in in year-end bonuses alone the average employee salary would be in the 6 figure category so the gullible might say, OMG janitors and secretaries at Lehman Brothers are making $200,000.00 a year!
yes teachers generally get 3 months off during the summer but one of my friends is a high school English literature teacher. during the school year he grades tests at home at night. he works on lesson plans at home. he also makes himself available after his working hours to kids who need help.
teachers have been held to standards for decades but in recent years they've been micromanaged and held accountable for student test scores. what happens here is teachers are considered great because of student test scores one year and are sometimes found abysmal the following year. much depends on the students entering their classrooms from one year to the next. micromanagement and metrics does not work in schools or in business for the simple reason these processes put undue pressure on those being managed. my start date at Lehman Brothers coincided almost to the day with the institution of a metrics system. as an employee insider i saw four things happen.
1) some employees cleverly found ways to make themselves look good on paper.
2) some employees for fear of their job security finished jobs as quickly as possible to look good in the metrics system but their finished jobs were riddled with careless mistakes others had to correct.
3) many employees who had previously done their jobs with integrity and gave it their all felt under the micromanagement of a matrix system felt mistrusted and unappreciated, eventually saying "fuck this place."
4) *scrubbing the books* scrubbing the books is a term used to describe how managers make metrics look good for their own job security but it also requires choosing scapegoats for what's not going right. a perfect example at Lehman Brothers could be seen in managers scrubbing the books to make outsourcing look far more productive and error free than it actually was. the reason they were ordered to do this is because those at the top were handed hugely larger bonuses for "saving the firm money" by outsourcing jobs when in reality outsourcing cost the firm money. in fact employees were forbidden from telling bankers their jobs were not done on time because they were outsourced to India and had to be done over.
the thing that boggles my mind is how the banking industry with it's millionaires and billionaires was allowed to drive our economy off the cliff but teachers, police and firefighters are under attack for ruining our economy. when i went to school teachers were devoted to us and never hesitated to stay late to help a student out. it is police and firefighters who run into danger to save lives and protect people. how did they become the bad guys?
oh and the for-profit record for school testing is statistically lower than that of public schools and home schooling? it's anybody's guess and depends upon the individual parent but with advances in mathematics and science alone i doubt many parents are able to keep up. even when i grew up i often heard parents complain they didn't understand "the new math", scientific calculators and such.
They must be learning something in school there. I just think that unless you go into the military, being a good shot does not have much of a future.
A teacher can only take the horse to the water and show him how to drink. It is up to the horse to put forth the effort to perform the act. The parents need to be held accountable as well. However, offer school choice for the parents who care and they will get the kid to the right place. Then covert the empty schools into prisons and the teachers can keep union jobs by working there. (of course it is more than a 9 months a year job!!) That way they can reap the benefits of working with what they helped to shape and mold.
@Jenny_Wren - espescially since most of the film isn't focused on unions. the main thread of the doc is following families trying to get their children into better schools by lottery.
Only in America do we trust our politicians more than our teachers.
@TheSutraDude - That's why most homeschool parents hire tutors for these subjects as they progress into more difficult material. All the homeschoolers I've ever known (and I wasn't homsechooled) excelled my classmates in math and science. One-on-one learning personally tailored to the students is far, far more efficient and effective than the classroom herd environment.
@Jenny_Wren - i agree personal tutoring would be effective but then the parents are hiring teachers aren't they. there are also parents who hire tutors for their kids attending public school.
@mtngirlsouth - Home schooling costs less like faith healing costs less than chemotherapy.
@TheSutraDude - But it would be one-on-one tutoring during school hours and for however long they need, rather than a full day of impersonal schooling with tutoring on top of it. And, no, they're not necessarily teachers themselves--just people who know their stuff.
you know... normally teachers have good reason to strike... but not so much this time.
The people (aka the government) pay for these teachers and their extremely good salary. And so the government should be able to fire a teacher who is not performing, and hire ones who can. The leaders of Chicago's teachers union have nerve.
Yes.